Eve Online source code posted online, DMCA takedown quickly follows

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GitHub, for those that don’t know, is an online repository for source code and software projects. It supports both open and closed source projects, and gives developers a central location to both share and store their projects.

For the most part the projects listed on GitHub are legitimate, and in the case of the open source repositories, viewing and downloading is encouraged. But sometimes code that shouldn’t be available is posted there, and the owner wants it taken down quickly.

GitHub handles such requests by accepting Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown requests. But any it receives are posted publicly for all to see. The one that turned up on our radar this morning was quite eye-opening. It looks as though someone has posted the source code for the space MMO Eve Online there.

As you’d imagine, developer CCP isn’t too happy about this and was quick to issue the takedown request. They describe it as the “decompiled source code” of the game and that it represents “infringing material”.

While the claim may be legitimate, GitHub has yet to respond. The code has been available to view and download for 4 days, and the DMCA takedown has been listed for almost a day. We suspect it won’t be there much longer, but who knows how many times it has been downloaded already.

The issue for CCP is they need to keep the game fair, and the systems running as designed. Availability of the source code for the online game potentially makes it easier for an incentivized programmer to modify the code and modifying the in-game systems to work in their favor when running a modified client.